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Thursday

Sep 25, 2008 at 12:01 AMSep 25, 2008 at 10:48 PM

The Coachwhips were a loud and obnoxious bunch, but their distortion-hungry overlord John Dwyer is not the sort of musician who's content to stick with one style. Thus, his tenure in the San Francisco music scene has amassed a resume full of band names - Yikes, Up It's Alive, Pink & Brown, etc., etc., etc. - that represent his various sonic cravings.

What: The Oh Sees

When: Friday, Sept. 26

Where: The Summit, Campus

Web: myspace.com/cafebourbonstreet

The Coachwhips were a loud and obnoxious bunch, but their distortion-hungry overlord John Dwyer is not the sort of musician who's content to stick with one style. Thus, his tenure in the San Francisco music scene has amassed a resume full of band names - Yikes, Up It's Alive, Pink & Brown, etc., etc., etc. - that represent his various sonic cravings.

OCS was one such side project, but since Coachwhips called it quits in 2005, OCS evolved from an outlet for Dwyer's experimental instrumental work into a superb garage-pop group known as The Oh Sees.

The band is like a photonegative of the Coachwhips: more accessible than abrasive, more melodic than grotesque, more discernable than impenetrable. In two LPs since fleshing out into a full band, they've taken a primitive, lo-fidelity approach to the sort of bluesy, druggy pop-rock that emerged from the Bay Area 40 years ago.

It works wonders, rendering them some bizarre combination of The Fall and The Mamas & the Papas. The rugged stomp and boy-girl harmonizing ought to make the perfect end-of-summer serenade when The Oh Sees visit The Summit Friday. Joining them will be two more pillars of the San Francisco psych-pop underground, Sic Alps and Ty Segall, plus local folk-punk troubadours RTFO Bandwagon.